Crime Geography in Rural Areas with Emphasis on Livestock Theft in Chardoli District of Qorveh County

Criminologists review venue and role of crime in its occurrence and concentrate on identifying crime, its reason and its stems in urban areas. Crime occurrence with respect to place and space related aspects have not been enough dealt with, in other words, basically crime specific problems and criminology research methods has not been dealt with properly. The present research aims at identifying crime grounds in rural areas and analyzing factors contributing to crime enhancement, especially livestock theft in rural areas in the western Chardoli district of Qorveh in the recent years. In terms of objective, the present research is of applied type and is descriptive analytical. Required data and information obtained by documentation, library studies and field studies. Statistical population is sample villages of Chardoli district of Qorveh county of Kurdistan province. The sample villages are selected through using stratified random sampling method. The tool stability is assessed in the pre ـtest (α= 0. 78). The findings indicate that although there has been livestock theft in rural areas since 1995, theft rate has been so low and rare. Since 2005, theft rate has had rising trend risen and has grown year by year. In addition, theft livestock rate has differed from season to season, and the highest rate belong to winter, which can be justified due to seasonal unemployment in this season. Proper road and easy access to villages, enhancement of some social delinquencies and misdemeanor such as drug addiction, lack of local guard police outpost and shortage of police stations are factors contributing to enhancement of theft rates.